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I was playing with a stormraven the other day and we got into a discussion on the line of sight of the fliers weapons. As the weapons on the fliers can't actually move downward and the flier is mounted on a flying stand the weapons should be pretty limited in what targets it can shoot at. So how do you measure the LoS from the weapons, especially the turret mounted one. We have been playing with a 10" no-fire zone but it doesn't work to well and makes hurricane bolters pretty bad.

That's probably about right - they have a 45 degree angle of attack, so 22.5 degrees down.

Whatever the weapons can point at, plus allowing for the 45° tilt. Obviously, the hull can still block the LOS a bit, despite this added tilt.

Personally, I tend to be pretty lenient with it anyway. But then, I play Heldrakes so I'd feel bad if I didn't

Edited for clarity.

The rules tell you to assume weapons have a 45 degree vertical traversal range, which means they can move 22.5 degrees up or down.

Given the height of a Flyer's stem (about 5 inches I believe) and some high school trigonometry, you can find the blind spot for the average weapon on a flyer, and it's about 11.5 inches away from the barrel, of course, the higher on the flyer it is, the larger it should become.

On top of that, the Stormraven notably blocks the LOS of it's top turret with it's own hull.

Fundamentally, the way you guys are playing now is pretty close to the rules for it, albeit slightly more generous for the flyers.

But that assumes the flier is level to the tabletop... I don't think I've ever seen anyone place their flier level with the table- it is invariably tilted forward (to show forward motion?). So that would drastically reduce the 11.5 inch no-shoot zone.

Beast wrote:
But that assumes the flier is level to the tabletop... I don't think I've ever seen anyone place their flier level with the table- it is invariably tilted forward (to show forward motion?). So that would drastically reduce the 11.5 inch no-shoot zone.

What Beast encounters we do in our club as well. Due to the 45 degree ruling, most people angle their flyer downward to reduce their blind-spot for shooting. And I can't see any reason that isn't possible.

On a side note, remind me to put my Eldar flyers on a 20in stem angling down when they come out, so those other flyers can't shoot up at me as well. :-P

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:

Beast wrote:
But that assumes the flier is level to the tabletop... I don't think I've ever seen anyone place their flier level with the table- it is invariably tilted forward (to show forward motion?). So that would drastically reduce the 11.5 inch no-shoot zone.

What Beast encounters we do in our club as well. Due to the 45 degree ruling, most people angle their flyer downward to reduce their blind-spot for shooting. And I can't see any reason that isn't possible.

On a side note, remind me to put my Eldar flyers on a 20in stem angling down when they come out, so those other flyers can't shoot up at me as well. :-P

The Stormraven's top turret would still be able to hit you on a 20 inch stand.

Angling it downward is MFA, simply if you are modelling the flyer to get an advantage over how it comes in the box you've got no leg to stand on. It's clear gamesmanship.

A storm raven will be hard pushed to fire all of it's guns at a single target even without the sponsons. It does get around this by having POTMS so the top turret can fire at something else that it has a chance of drawing los to.

All of the trigonometry in the world doesn't matter, you have boards with uneven surfaces, odd heights and angles mess things up. Just pull out a protractor and just eye it up.

Not knowing it this had been posted anywhere before and because I keep running into this:
Where is the exact written reference that breaks down the "swivel up to 45 degrees vertically" as 22.5 degrees to either side? The same for hull mounted. I know that the diagram in the BRB seems to support that convention, but in the discussions I have been involved in, we have not been able to pin down a written ruling that specifically and directly breaks it down as 22.5 each way for 45 total as opposed to 45 in one direction.
I know this has been beat up on my threads so any direction to one of them would be appreciated and thanks to all in advance.

 ah64pilot5 wrote:
Not knowing it this had been posted anywhere before and because I keep running into this:
Where is the exact written reference that breaks down the "swivel up to 45 degrees vertically" as 22.5 degrees to either side? The same for hull mounted. I know that the diagram in the BRB seems to support that convention, but in the discussions I have been involved in, we have not been able to pin down a written ruling that specifically and directly breaks it down as 22.5 each way for 45 total as opposed to 45 in one direction.
I know this has been beat up on my threads so any direction to one of them would be appreciated and thanks to all in advance.

45 in one direction. would mean 0 traverse in the other direction.

Starting at the bottom of the arc this is true, but starting in the middle, like most guns, means 22.5 to either side.

To go 45 degrees up and 45 degrees down would mean they could swivel 90 degrees, which of course is not true.

I tend to agree with the 45 in one direction would mean 0 in the other, but again, the argument that comes back is there is no specific reference saying that it is in total or one direction. One point that comes up is for a ground vehicle and why would it have a 22.5 up and down as opposed to a 0 down and 45 up (realizing that modern vehicles vs. game mechanics means nothing, most modern armored vehicles can elevate much higher than they can depress).
With the 45/0 reasoning, it could be argued for a flyer that it can elevate none and depress 45, again as there nothing that specifies to either side or up/down and to what extent/part of that 45 must apply.
Please again not trying to be overly a pain.

They show in the pictures that it's 22.5 each way as a demonstration within the rule book. So you cannot pull the 0/45 thing here.

 ah64pilot5 wrote:
I tend to agree with the 45 in one direction would mean 0 in the other, but again, the argument that comes back is there is no specific reference saying that it is in total or one direction. One point that comes up is for a ground vehicle and why would it have a 22.5 up and down as opposed to a 0 down and 45 up (realizing that modern vehicles vs. game mechanics means nothing, most modern armored vehicles can elevate much higher than they can depress).
With the 45/0 reasoning, it could be argued for a flyer that it can elevate none and depress 45, again as there nothing that specifies to either side or up/down and to what extent/part of that 45 must apply.
Please again not trying to be overly a pain.

They don't illustrate it specifically for the vertical traverse, but the wording for the horizontal arc of hull mounted weapons is the same (...can swivel horizontally up to 45 degrees.) and the accompanying illustration shows that this means a 45 degree total arc, with 25 degrees to either side.

I agree and that is what I argue, but keep meeting resistance. Mainly looking for informed consensus as a backup. Not 'trying to pull that here', thanks...

I though the old 5e codex said turrets could elevate up to 45 degrees. I have not checked 6e for similiar because that just is reasonable of chin guns to depress that much.

barnowl wrote:
I though the old 5e codex said turrets could elevate up to 45 degrees.

Yes, Up to 45 degrees, which is a total traverse of 45 degrees.